


Howling Hallelujah

by anthrop



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, The Signless is pale for the whole goddamn species, of course he's gonna be pale for a terrifying demoness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthrop/pseuds/anthrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes him a full minute to realize he's no longer alone. This man is no fighter,  no experience or the sharp edge of paranoia to keep his senses taut, but that's why you wanted to see him, isn't it? You are so very sick of fighting. He inhales sharply, his head snaps up--no doubt the ozone smell that trails after you is what alerts him--and even silhouetted against the orange firelight his mutant eyes glow like dying stars.</p><p>"Have you come to kill me?" he asks, softly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howling Hallelujah

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: Fixed the paragraph spacing because it decided to explode on me when I wasn't looking.
> 
> A story for the 30 drabbles writing challenge. 
> 
> And I told myself I'd never write Ancestors fic. Whoops.
> 
> Title is taken from [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdpBhN7XG9Y).

You aren't certain why you do it. This close to the end, do you really need to explain your actions, least of all to yourself?

(That was rhetorical.)

It started as  a harmless little niggling in the back of your head, like a tickle in the throat, easily soothed by a mouthful of water. It kept coming back to you though, steady as the moons-pulled tide. You ignored it for long sweeps, and if it was a long time for you it would have been many decades, all piled on top of each other like slippery river stones, for any troll still able to die. When the end is in sight, however, you allow yourself to face this persistent little niggle. You know the tyrianblood will come for you soon, and there is no denying your eagerness for the end.

While you must yet wait a little longer, you have no intention of being idle. You raise your wands, breathe in, and cast yourself back into earlier days as easy as thought. It is that easy, when you have had as much time as you to perfect the art of time travel.

The sun and the moons and the distant stars slow their endless wheeling above you. As you walk the hidden path to his rough-hewn cave you slide your wands into the slim pockets of your dress. There's no door, just a stretch of soft pelt--direhowlbeast, from the feel of it against your skin--to keep the firelight contained. You push it aside, and there he is--hunched over scraps of parchment, muttering to himself as he scratches out snatches of green text and writing over it in red.

It takes him a full minute to realize he's no longer alone. This man is no fighter,  no experience or the sharp edge of paranoia to keep his senses taut, but that's why you wanted to see him, isn't it? You are so very sick of fighting. He inhales sharply, his head snaps up--no doubt the ozone smell that trails after you is what alerts him--and even silhouetted against the orange firelight his mutant eyes glow like dying stars.

"Have you come to kill me?" he asks, softly.

"It is not yet your time," you reply in the same volume. There is no need for noise or violence here. This man breeds peace as easy as you do ugliness. Something small, so very very small, releases its grip deep in your bloodpusher, and it is somehow easier to breathe in this smoky refuge than any other time or place you have been in a long, long time.

"Then why have you come? I am alone tonight, and the next as well."

"I wanted to make my own opinion of the one known now as the Signless."

His smile is crooked and full of fangs as blunt as his horns. "Have my stories really traveled so far as to reach the ears of shades and coontime stories?"

"Perhaps, but I would not be so pleased if I were you. There are many shades worse than I, and they may be listening."

"Forgive me, then, for my foolish moment of pride." He tucks his smile away, although you suspect he is the type of troll to keep it close to the surface. "It is not often I hear my title spoken of with anything besides disgust, or at worst, indifference. To hear it from the mouth of the dreaded Handmaid is a true, if strange, pleasure."

Perhaps the firelight is strong enough, or his strange eyes sharp enough, for him to catch the grimace that passes over your face, because he hastily adds, "I'm sorry. Was that rude of me?"

"I have grown tired of that title, that is all."

"Then is there another I might address you by?"

"My wiggler name is long forgotten. All that is left to me are the fearful whispers assigned to me by those I suffer to live."

"That is very sad to hear." There is a strange note to his voice that you're unable to place.

"It is as it should be."

He doesn't seem to know what to make of that. After a silence broken only by the crackle of burning wood, he says, "I was not expecting any guests this evening, and my supplies are low. But that doesn't mean I can't offer my hospitality. Please, would you like some tea?"

You are struck momentarily dumb by the question. No one has spoken to you like this in what might as well be forever. "Yes," you say, once you have gained the use of your tongue again. "Yes, I would like that very much."

He brews the tea leaves in a kettle that's badly dented, and the stoneware mug he hands you has a crack that leaks in warm beads against your palm, but the tea is strong and sweet-smelling and it warms you all the way through. "Thank you," you say after tasting and finding it good.

"Think nothing of it. Would you mind if we went outside? I don't know about you but I could use the fresh air." He's already reaching for the tattered cloak folded over the back of his chair. You nod, decline his offer for something to wrap yourself in, and follow him out into the night. He leads you around his makeshift little hive and up onto a grassy knoll, where he settles down with a huff and a shiver as the dew seeps through his clothes. It's only now you realize how the steam rises thickly from your cups, how his every exhale is a visible cloud. It makes you curious, for a moment, to find out if his blood is warmer than yours for all its mutant vibrancy. The feeling passes however, and you sit beside him.

"What would you have me say?" he asks once you have adjusted your dress.

"I would not have you say anything."

"But isn't that why you're here? Because of what I've been saying? Of what I'm trying to accomplish?"

"You are not the first to attempt inspiring change."

He laughs. "Oh, I don't doubt that. But where are the words of my fellow preachers and would-be revolutionaries in the history books? Only a handful can be found, but there must have been thousands more that have had their words cleverly edited, or outright destroyed. I bet there have been many great trolls who have been reduced to a name in the culling lists, don't you?"

You say nothing, and he sighs, balancing his mug neatly between his square fingertips.

"You're not what I expected, you know."

"What were you expecting?"

He shrugs and nestles a little deeper into the folds of his cloak. He is a troll who has trouble sitting still. "The stories make you out to be this terrible shadow of destruction and clockwork majykks, a demon who looks like a troll but is actually something ancient and terrible. Wherever war and carnage run rampant, it's said you're there overseeing it, like some omnipotent conducterrorist." His voice lowers to a whisper. "I've heard some likened you to angels."

"I am no angel," you say, and you're surprised at the amusement that colors your voice. "But I know them well."

"How true are the stories?" he asks.

"True enough. The stories that will come after your time will be worse than those you know, and they will be no less true for it."

"Shame." He changes the subject before you have a chance to ask what he means. "So tell me, if you aren't an angel, what are you?"

"I am just an old troll," you reply, because that is what you are when you get right down to it. You feel every hour of your cursed life, when you allow yourself a moment's rest, like a brittleness that goes deeper than your bones. You rarely rest anymore.

He chuckles, breath a bright white cloud in the moonslight. "You must be very old then. Old as that blasted sea hag, eh?"

"Mm, no," you reply, appreciating the last flood of warmth from your finished tea, "Older than that."

"That's a little frightening, you know."

"I know."

His hand shakes a little when he sets his mug down, and you tick off three quiet minutes watching the moons rise before he blurts out, "What's your blood color?"

"It hardly matters, does it?"

"I know how stupidly hypocritical it is for me, the mutantblood vying for hemoequalism, to ask that, but your eyes don't match. And--"

He doesn't flinch when you laugh; he simply goes quiet, hunching a little deeper into himself, and something like his crooked grin twinkles in his bright eyes. He does flinch, however, when you draw one of your wands out of your pocket. This does something to your bloodpusher, squeezes it in a way you can't immediately recall the name for.

Ah, yes. Embarrassment.

Shame.

"Hush," you whisper, and draw the sharp tip of your wand across your palm. Blood wells up, stinging in the frostbitten air, from the cut, darkly reflecting green moonlight. Oh, will you never be rid of that awful puppet?

(That was also rhetorical. Of course you will be, just as soon as you're dead.)

"Huh," he says, thoughtful. "I wasn't expecting maroon at all."

"You had a color in mind?"

"Mmmno, not exactly. More of an expectation?" His naked arms, corded with muscle, snake out from the folds of his cloak to gesture as he speaks. "You've got the height for an indigo, your bone structure is very tealblooded, edging up into true blue, but you're  skinny as a yellowblood after a sweep in the wetware. Your horns have the curve of a rustblood, sure, but they're way too big, more like an elderly seadweller I met once in a port on the other side of the desert." He shrugs, grinning. "Like I said, expectations, but no one color in mind."

With a spark of white majykks, you seal the cut and wipe your hand clean on the grass. "For one so set on hemoquality, you have a lot of opinions based upon the caste system."

"Not opinions." There's a stubbornness to his voice. He's had this discussion before. "I've never had much of a pan for science, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out the caste system has _some_ truth to it. I've never denied the strength of the bluebloods nor the power of the rustbloods; my teachings have always been that lengthy lifespans and webbed fingers should not make you any nobler than the trolls capable of tearing holes in space-time with their thinkpans. Don't you think?"

"I don't think anything about it. It is as it should be."

"But it shouldn't be like this!" Anger in his voice, and your hands flinch to your wands. "You know what I preach, you know of my visions! There was a world before this Alternia, a world of peace and beauty, of _equality_. That world was without fear! Isn't _that_ how we should be?"

"Not if you want your descendant to win the Game."

"How do y--" His eyes shine. "You played it too, back then, didn't you? You were Megido, the rustblood with the bleatbeat horns. Weren't you?"

Very carefully, you place your hands on your folded knees, palm down, and try not to shake. "I haven't heard that name in a long time, Vantas."

When he stands, you think for one brief, terrifying moment that he is going to run from you. He says nothing for long seconds, and then, very quietly, "I am going to do something that is probably very stupid, but you have to promise not to smite me for it. Alright?"

"What?"

He falls to his knees, and before you can recoil he wraps you tight in his arms. He's squeezing, pinning your arms to your sides, _he's trying to kill you_ \--

Oh. There is a word for this.

He's hugging you.

"W-why are you doing this?" Why is your voice cracking?

"Shoosh," he says, and begins to rock you, gentle and steady as a clock. "You shoosh right this instant and let me do this for you."

"But why--"

"Because I'm pale for our whole goddamn species, Megido. Because sometimes a hug is all I can give to someone, and I have to hope it helps even a little. Because I think you are very tired, and very sad, and I think you haven't been hugged in a very long time."

There are tears in his eyes, but the wetness on your cheek is your own. For once, you don't bother to keep time while you both sit there, curled into each other. You simply allow yourself to be.

Eventually, once you both have quieted down, he breaks the silence. "You… mentioned my descendent."

"He will be the leader his friends flock to when the world ends. When the Game is played anew."

"H-how will they fare?"

You allow yourself a broad smile, hidden in his neck from the green moon. " They will be brilliant. They will achieve such greatness, their caste symbols will be emblazoned in the stars of the universe they create. Be proud of them, Signless. Be proud of your descendent. They will be greater than you can ever imagine."

He laughs, hiccups, and pulls away to paw at his eyes. " _Good_. I--you have no idea what a relief that is to hear."

"He won't know of you."

"I wouldn't expect him to. He'll be too busy to read of me--"

You take his rough hand in yours. "No, Vantas. You must know this. Now, before I leave."

"What is it, Megido?"

"You will die, just as all the preachers and would-be revolutionaries before you. But you will not lucky enough to be left a name in the culling lists. The Condesce will destroy you completely, and by the time your descendent is hatched even your titles will be as dust."

"But everything I'm working for, with Captor, and Leijon, and my mother--"

"Will remain alive only in a symbol, but in time the meaning of that symbol too will be erased."

He goes very still, and sadness furrows deep into his brow. You smile, and this time don't bother to hide it from the moonslight. "Do not be troubled; all will not be in vain. Your actions now will be what saves your descendent from culling. You may not change the world for the better, but you _will_ save it."

"I'm not sure if that is as comforting as you seem to think it should be," he says. There is an attempt at his crooked grin that just barely qualifies as passable. You let it pass anyway. "You said _my titles will be as dust_. Megido, what would anyone call me aside from Signless?"

You had hoped he wouldn't ask that question, and cup his face--no, you _pap_ his face--to ease his fear. If he would be pale for you, you will be pale for him. At least for this night. "Your death will be slow, and painful. Your followers, you friends,  your family will be taken from you. Some will die. Many will wish they will die sooner. One will not die until the Game is played, long sweeps from now. Your sorrow and your rage will be remembered in a whisper passed down for generations. They will know you as the Sufferer."

"Oh."

"Mm. Perhaps I should not have told you that."

"No. _No_ , I'm glad you did." He grips your arms, presses his forehead against yours. There is a conviction in his dying star-bright eyes that was not there when he first looked at you tonight. "Now I will fight all the harder, so that our descendants won't just be brilliant. They will be fucking _magnificent_."

"I will hold you to that, Vantas." You pull away, wands in hand. "I have to leave now."

He withdraws into his cloak with a nod. "Hey, I ever waver, you be sure to come knocking alright? I'll keep the kettle brewing, just for you."

Your eyes sting. "Thank you."

"No. _Thank you_."

The sky, the moons, the rolling hills, and his bright eyes vanish in a lightning strike of majykks. It's time for you to die now, and he will never see you again. But you saw him, many times after, and made sure he never wavered in his travels. You remember the smell of his wrists burning in the irons that became a symbol for a cult, and then a symbol for his descendent. You remember his dying words. You remember the warmth of his arms, your last night alive. You approach the Battleship Condescension, and remember his words and his crooked grin.

Because he was right.

They played the Game, and they were exactly as magnificent as he promised. 


End file.
